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Swift Playgrounds now in five extra languages

This week Apple announced that Swift Playgrounds, an app for iPad that helps students learn to code, is now available in five new languages including Simplified Chinese, Japanese, French, German and Latin American Spanish.

Designed to make learning and experimenting with real code interactive and fun, Swift Playgrounds is perfect for students and beginners to explore working with Swift, the programming language from Apple that is used by professional developers.

The app includes Apple-developed programming lessons, puzzles and challenges that teach core coding concepts, as well as built-in templates to encourage users to express their creativity and create real programmes. It takes full advantage of the power, simplicity and Multi-Touch capabilities of iPad to deliver a first-of-its-kind learning experience. All programming lessons are now localised across five additional languages and are optimised to look even better and run faster than ever.

“The Swift Playgrounds app has helped people of all ages learn the basics of coding, and with more than a million downloads to date, customers and students find it an easy and fun way to get started with Swift,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “Hundreds of thousands of iPhone and iPad apps, including some of the most popular in the App Store, use Swift, a programming language we designed to be both powerful and easy for anyone to learn.”

Commented Xiaoming Bao, Hangzhou Foreign Languages School: “Swift Playgrounds is the perfect app to help our students learn to code, and I’m very excited students in China are now are able to use it with Simplified Chinese support. Last year, we created an optional coding class for my students to learn fundamental coding concepts using Swift Playgrounds.

"I had no previous experience with coding, but the engaging and easy-to-learn app, along with the comprehensive teacher guide developed by Apple, made me confident that I could inspire and facilitate my students to learn to code, and understand coding as a way of thinking that can be applied to other subjects and everyday life. Chinese language support will make the learning experience with Swift Playgrounds even easier for students.”